Size Of MIDI Tracks Vs. Audio Before And After Mixdown: Difference??

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Mike Freze

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Hello Again! Just a question about recording midi as audio initially right along with the other audio tracks in a project (I use Cubase).

I understand that midi takes up very little hard drive space to record the data as midi files alongside of your audio (analog) tracks. What I don't understand is this: if you have to convert those midi tracks to audio down the road in order to mixdown (bounce) all your tracks to a single stereo audio file for final exporting, isn't the size of the audio file (say, WAV) going to be the same after you converted those midi tracks to audio as it would have been if you did everything as audio to begin with??

If so, how is that going to help lessen the stress or demands on your computer (or take up less hard drive space) when it all ends up that way as audio anyway when you go to mixdown your project? I know recording midi as midi tracks (data only) is great for detailed editing and "temporary" smaller-sized tracks, but what difference does it make if it all has to be audio in the end??

Thanks!

Mike Freze
 
You're on the nose on all points. You already have the answers to your questions. MIDI data is small and easy to edit. MIDI that has been converted to audio is no different than any other audio track file. That's how it is. Each form has it's own set of advantages and disadvatnages.

And with today's computers, don't lose any sleep about over-taxing them either way. Today's hard drives and CPUs are more than large enough and fast enough to handle plenty of audio, whether it's in MIDI data or an audio file format.

G.
 
Thanks, Glen, for the wonderful advice. Hey, one other thing: what turns the midi data you play into actual sound that you hear in real time while you play (say, my external Yamaha electric keyboard)? Is it called a sequencer, a sound module, a sound generator, a software synthesizer?? What's making the midi data come out as an audio sound?

Is it a hardware device or a software device that does this? Is it a temporary conversion from midi to audio that's going on when this happens in real time when you play back your midi track and hear the sound??

Thanks, Glen! Mike
 
I don't know which keyboard you have or exactly how it's internally designed, so I can only talk in generalities.

MIDI is simply a set of musical instructions that say things along the lines of, "Play this note with these time characteristics, volume, etc. and have it sound like this instrument. In a MIDI file, this information is put into a "sequence" in a similar way that holes on a piano roll or the bumps on a music box cylinder are punched into a continuous sequence to be played back as a "song".

In the case of MIDI, the playback device - the thing that turns those instructions into sound - depends upon the actual playback device. It can be hardware or software, but often is some combination of both (e.g. a sequencer program driving a synthesizer or sound card.)

Now, when playing a keyboard live, if the keyboard spits out it's own sound via speakers or line outs or both, it's got it's own built-in hardware and firmware (and sometimes software when they take floppy disks or flash cards also) that generates the sounds. And if it has MIDI out, then on that channel it's got it's own hardware/firmware that translates your keystrokes and settings into real-time MIDI data instead.

G.
 
Mike Freze said:
What's making the midi data come out as an audio sound?

Is it a hardware device or a software device that does this? Is it a temporary conversion from midi to audio that's going on when this happens in real time when you play back your midi track and hear the sound??
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It could be any type of MIDI instrument. It could be a keyboard. It could be a rack-mount synth unit. It could be a soft synth. It could be the sample bank on an internal sound card.

It is a "temporary conversion" to audio in the following sense: A clarinet player has sheet music in front of him. He plays it. In the instant he plays it, the music is "temporarily converted" from sheet music data to real sound. That is exactly what midi is doing. If you put a mic in front of the clarinet player, now the sheet music is "permanently" converted to real sound. If you record your midi into your DAW as audio, it is "permanently" converted in the same way.
 
Thanks, guys, for all your great help. Glen, I use a Yamaha PSR-90 keyboard that has all these effects and different orchestra sounds built into it. It doesn't even need to be connected to a computer; it even has it's own drive that stores your own compositions.

But what is the device (or software) called that makes the temporary conversion of the midi data to an audio sound when you're playing? Do you call this a sound generator, a sequencer, a sound module, or a synthesizer?? Even when I record a midi track using my eternal Boss Drum Machine that has pre-programmed sounds and patterns in it, when I record that as a midi track in my computer, which of the above terms I used best describes conversion to audio sound: generator, sequencer, etc.? Whatever it is, is it a software program that does this conversion? Does it reside in my software recording program (say, Cubase), in my computer sound card, or in my external hardware midi instrument I am playng on that is hooked up to my computer? Mike
 
"Sound module", "sound generator", and "MIDI synthesizer" are all valid terms. The sequencer is the part of it that reads the sequence of MIDI instructions and sends them to the generator/synthesizer for the sound generation/synthesis. Or to put it another way, the generator or MIDI sysnthesizer is the instrument and the sequencer is what plays it.

And like I said, it could be in hardware or software or firmware or any combination of them. It doesn't matter.

G.
 
If you're trying to get a handle on MIDI, do yourself a big favor and go to the local Barnes&Noble or Amazon's book store... there are a LOT of basic midi books that will help you a LOT.
 
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